Ferrari team principal Frederic Vasseur at a loss to explain poor performance – ‘Very difficult to understand

Ferrari team principal Frederic Vasseur said that their current car is “very difficult to understand”.

Vasseur took over from Mattia Binotto in the close season and has seen Red Bull emerge once more as the team to beat.

For now, Red Bull’s Max Verstappen looks favourite for the title, which would represent a hat-trick for the Dutchman and the Austrian team.

Perhaps more disappointingly, Ferrari’s other driver Charles Leclerc failed to progress past Q1 in qualifying, and did not finish in the points on the Sunday.

Ferrari had introduced an upgrade package to Barcelona, including new sidepods, but it made little difference.

He added: “We have 1,000 people [working] on this now and it is very difficult to understand and to fix it because it’s not always the same problem.

“It’s true that in qualifying, you are in free air and in the race you are not. I think Charles struggled a lot in the first stint as he was a lot closer to the car in front of him.

“The main issue for us is not the potential on the lap on [high-speed] corners, the main issue is the inconsistency.

“On Charles’ car for example, between the first and third stints with the same compound, one the balance was out of place, and the last one was OK, and with Carlos, he did a decent first stint, and in the middle, he lost 15 or 20 seconds.”

Sainz is sixth in the F1 drivers’ standings on 58 points, with Leclerc seventh on 42 points.